


One More for the Road

by Requiem



Category: XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alcohol Withdrawal, Canon-Typical Violence, Fade to Black, Heavy Drinking, Implied Drunken Sex, M/M, Pre-XCOM 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28238988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Requiem/pseuds/Requiem
Summary: When a mission in one of the ADVENT cities goes south, help comes in the form of a man Bradford hasn't seen in years.
Relationships: John "Central" Bradford/Shaojie Zhang
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2020





	One More for the Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roadsterguy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadsterguy/gifts).



> I loved your prompts and absolutely had to write you something!

The mission was a bloodbath. Bradford had left the Avenger with a team of three others, and now he was the only one left. He didn't even have a working radio with which to call for an extraction—it'd taken a bullet for him earlier, leaving him bruised but otherwise unharmed, and he hadn't been able to go back for one of his fallen soldiers' radios. He wasn't even sure where their bodies were so they could be collected later if ADVENT troops didn't get to them first, but if he wanted to see them back to the Avenger, he had to get himself out of the city first.

He'd taken refuge in an office after shooting out the lock on a side door, hopefully not noticeable enough for the ADVENT troops hot on his tail to follow him in. His top priority now was to find a radio so he could get back in touch with the Skyranger or the Avenger, but communication equipment was highly regulated by ADVENT, especially within their cities, so he doubted he would be able find one even if he turned the entire building upside down.

Still, he searched the office desks hoping to find left-behind travel papers that would get him through the security checkpoints quietly, or something that could be used to jury-rig a makeshift radio.

The search eventually yielded nothing but disappointment, but with ADVENT troops still prowling the streets, the security towers working overtime, and no way to get back in contact with Firebrand, Bradford decided to lie low where he was for the night.

Sleep came in fitful starts and stops, the slightest noise from streets away startling him back to full awareness. There was also a telltale cramp in his stomach that hungered not for food, but a strong drink, and a looming headache forming in the back of his skull. The sooner he got out of here, the better.

He slept with his back in a corner and his shotgun in his hands, and when the first rays of dawn began to creep through the window blinds, he gave up on sleep entirely and took to the streets again.

The city seemed to be quieter now, but Bradford could still hear heavy footfalls not far away. Having gotten used to fighting ADVENT out in the countryside though, and with visibility being much poorer in the city with its crowded buildings and myriad of other distractions, it was difficult to tell which direction the sounds were coming from.

He took a chance and headed down one street that seemed to be clear, only to turn the corner and come face to face with a squad apparently taking a break.

For a moment, he thought they hadn't spotted him—it was hard to tell with those helmets—but it seemed they suffered from the same delayed reaction he did, and the first of the troops only raised their weapons after he'd dived behind a dumpster.

He'd only gotten a brief look at the squad, but he was outnumbered at least four to one, and without the usual city traffic to hold up reinforcements, things could get ugly quickly. Better to turn tail and live to fight another day.

Bradford initially intended to return the way he'd come, but a hail of bullets and a corresponding jolt of pain in his side quickly dissuaded him of the idea. He didn't dare look down to check the extent of his injury, but he'd been shot before, and this just felt like a graze. He'd see to it later, provided there was a later.

He blindly laid down some covering fire as he made a mad dash across the plaza to the cover in the middle provided by a pillar on one side and benches on two. He was now out of sight of the first squad, and while they repositioned, he opened fire on the second squad, which was unable to hit him from this angle.

He managed to get most of them before he had to reload, after which the first squad was well on its way to flanking him. Damn; he'd gotten too used to having someone watching his back again.

The only way out Bradford could see was to take care of the two remaining ADVENT troops from the second squad, then make a run for it in the direction they were previously covering. That was, if the wound in his side didn't ruin the plan first; it was bleeding rather profusely now, and he made the decision to swap out his shotgun for a pistol so he could try to stem the bleeding with one hand.

It took him two shots to down the first trooper, a few of its own shots landing dangerously close to his hiding spot. The second trooper was harder, mostly because the pain in his side was getting to be a distraction, and he was starting to get dizzy from the blood loss. Running to the other side of the plaza with an entire squad at his back now seemed like less of a good idea than it had five minutes ago.

Then a grenade landed in the middle of the squad, and the ADVENT troops went up in a fiery blast. The force of the explosion shattered several windows and set off the nearby alarms, but there weren't any more troops in the immediate vicinity to provide backup. Everything seemed to be quiet for now.

A man holding a grenade launcher climbed out a second-story window of a nearby building onto the fire escape and took the stairs down, heading straight for Bradford. He wasn't wearing the uniform of any of the resistance factions, but given that he'd just blown up a squad of ADVENT troops in the middle of one of their cities, it stood to reason that he wasn't working with them.

"Central Officer Bradford," the man said with a smirk as he came closer. "Never thought I'd see you out in the field. I used to think the wanted posters were a bit much, but now I think they don't emphasize enough how much of a threat you really are."

Now that the man was close enough for Bradford to take in his features, the close-cropped white hair and goatee and the scars on the right side of his face seemed familiar. It took Bradford a moment to put a name to the face, but this was someone who'd once been an ally.

"Zhang," he finally pulled from the recesses of his memory.

"And here I was thinking you wouldn't remember me." Zhang rested his grenade launcher on his shoulder so he could hold out a hand.

Bradford wasn't prideful enough to refuse the help when his side was throbbing with a fierceness to rival the pounding in his head. "You disappeared."

Most of XCOM had scattered after the base had been destroyed and the Commander kidnapped, but Bradford had been able to track down most of the survivors, namely those who'd joined up with the smaller resistance groups. Not Zhang, though. Bradford had dedicated some extra resources to looking for XCOM's former officers—they had plenty of raw recruits and needed the experience—but Zhang had seemingly vanished off the face of the earth.

"I'm not one to go down with a sinking ship, and XCOM was…sunk. I had no reason to stick around."

"And now?"

"Now…I see a man standing up to ADVENT, and I might give him a second look, maybe help him out a little if it doesn't jeopardize my position. I see a man I recognize from the old days standing up to ADVENT, and it makes me curious. Even more so when it's someone who's as high-profile as you are these days. What _are_ you doing here?"

"This place will be swarming with ADVENT any minute now," Bradford said. "We can talk once we're out of the open."

"Fair enough. I've got just the place."

'Just the place' turned out to be somewhere in the sewers accessed through a manhole not far from their current position. It was hard to get down the ladder with one hand still pressed to the wound in his side, but Bradford didn't dare to remove it lest the bleeding get bad enough he started leaving a blood trail.

Zhang seemed to be familiar with the tunnels, leading the way with a flashlight and taking them through several doors that needed keycards to open.

"Got in touch with some hackers who work out of this city," Zhang said at the first door, waving a card over his shoulder. "This gets me through most doors in the city with low-level security."

The final door they passed through was a heavy steel one locked with a keypad and a physical key, and opened into a small room with another door of thin sheet metal on one side.

The room was furnished with a bedroll raised off the floor on a wooden pallet, and several crates that functioned as a table and chair. What took up the most space was the veritable armory in one corner: tens of guns of varying sizes were carefully laid atop hundreds of boxes of ammo and explosives.

"They're only mostly for me," Zhang said when he noticed where Bradford's attention had been drawn. "I collect ADVENT weapons and sell them when I need some cash. I also have a first-aid kit around here somewhere; why don't you go sit down before you pass out?"

"I'm not going to pass out," Bradford grumbled, mostly out of stubbornness since he _was_ starting to feel a little lightheaded. Just a little.

He sat down on one of the crates and moved his hand slightly so he could inspect the wound, but it was hard to see anything with his blood staining everything red. He'd lost more than he realized, with most of the blood being soaked up by his shirt.

"I haven't done this on anyone but me for a long time, so I don't want to hear any complaints, alright?" Zhang set a first-aid kit onto the table and rummaged through it, pulling out bandages, dressings, and a needle and thread. "Come on, let's have a look."

Bradford removed his hand from the wound and a steady flow of blood gushed out. The sudden drop in blood pressure had his vision going grey, and he vaguely noticed his body tilting to one side and Zhang lunging to catch him before everything went dark.

-

When Bradford awoke, he was lying on his right side in the recovery position on something hard and uncomfortable. It took him a few seconds to remember he was in Zhang’s hideout in the sewers of an ADVENT city, and he seemed to be sleeping on Zhang’s bedroll. The man himself was nowhere in sight.

Bradford sat up, or tried to, but with the adrenaline gone from his system, what had previously been a sharp burning sensation in his side had now been upgraded to stabbing agony, and he fell back onto the bedroll without getting very far.

As he laid there trying to catch his breath, he realized he wasn’t wearing his own shirt, but rather one that hung on him a little loose even with the bandages that wrapped around his abdomen. His boots and trousers were still on, though, and the pistol he usually kept in the holster on his right thigh had been placed on the pallet next to him. Loaded, too.

Just when he was about to try getting up again to see if there were painkillers in the first-aid kit, the door opened.

"You’re going to want to lie low for a day or two at least," Zhang said as he shut the door behind him. "The streets are crawling with ADVENT, and they’re doing thorough checks of everyone's papers."

"Ah, shit." Bradford let his head fall back onto the folded-up shirt that was serving as a pillow; the bodies of his team would probably end up being used as propaganda.

"So." Zhang put down the bag he’d been carrying onto the table. "I’ve heard whispers about XCOM, and there’s no denying the wanted posters all through the cities with your face on them. A person might put two and two together and come to the conclusion that XCOM had gotten back together."

"A person just might," Bradford growled. He had a lower tolerance than usual for cryptic conversations with both his side and his head throbbing in unison. "You got anything to drink around here?" A drink would solve both of his problems nicely.

"I’ve got something better." Zhang reached into the bag on the table and came up with a syringe. "Traded a nice plasma rifle for some morphine."

"And you’re sure it’s actually morphine?"

"Sure as I can be without trying some myself; the chemist I source my meds from has come through so far. Now, do you want it or not?"

"Fine." Bradford held out his arm; if it _was_ morphine, it’d do a better job at numbing the pain than alcohol, and if it didn’t work, a drink was still in the cards.

Whatever it was, it kicked in pretty quick, and Bradford was able to ease himself off the pallet to join Zhang at the table. He was looking over what looked like a map of the city marked with colored shapes and scribbled notes.

"Did you do this by yourself?" Bradford asked. The level of detail was impressive.

"Mhm. Working with others hasn’t gone well for me, historically."

Bradford thought XCOM had been working quite well up until the day that everything took a turn for the worse, but he wasn't in the mood to start that argument now.

"What do these shapes mean?" he asked instead.

"Squares are supply crates waiting to be shipped out, triangles are data relays, and circles are people ADVENT has arrested, mostly suspected resistance operatives."

Bradford raised an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't work well with others."

"Just because I might free a few prisoners doesn't mean I work with them."

"What do you call this, then?"

"Most of the time, they don't even notice I was there. But you're a special case, Central."

"I'm flattered. What do you want with me?"

"Considering I didn't even know you were in the city until I saw you this morning, I haven't thought of anything yet. But I sure wouldn't mind you owing me a favor."

Bradford pinched the bridge of his nose. "I've got enough to deal with trying to keep the resistance factions from going for each other’s throats without having to worry about you too. Name your price before I leave."

"Hm. Alright, I'm sure I'll think of something."

While Zhang looked over his maps and consulted something on his phone, Bradford tried to tune the radio Zhang had to the frequency that Firebrand would be listening on. He threw out a few coded messages, but received no response; hopefully the Skyranger was just out of range and hadn't been captured by ADVENT.

"They've probably put up signal jammers around the city," Zhang said when Bradford smacked the side of the radio in frustration after a clear line turned to static. "Be careful with that, or it'll be another thing you owe me for."

Despite Zhang's warnings about the streets swarming with ADVENT, he didn't seem to be deterred from leaving the hideout again later in the day. He'd mumbled something about 'doing the rounds', then left before Bradford could ask for more explanation.

He'd had a fruitless day sitting by the radio and occasionally watching Zhang make marks on his map, and he really needed a freaking drink. Bradford dug through the stores of Zhang's supplies until he came up with an unmarked bottle that smelled strongly of alcohol. It burned going down, even worse than the cheap whiskey and moonshine he'd resorted to drinking when he couldn't get something better, but it soothed his frayed nerves and calmed his shaking hands in an instant.

He’d gone through an entire bottle and was opening up another when Zhang came back.

"What were you doing?" Bradford would’ve thought himself only moderately buzzed, but his words were slurred even to his ears.

"I was about to ask you the same thing, but the answer seems pretty obvious." Zhang raised his eyebrows at the empty bottle.

"You didn’t exactly leave me with much in the way to do," Bradford grumbled.

Zhang set down what looked like a rifle case with the rest of his armory, then crossed his arms and gave Bradford an all-too-familiar critical look. "What the hell happened to you, Central?"

"Aliens fucking took over Earth, and we let them do it," Bradford snapped. "Or haven't you been paying attention?" It’d been a while since he’d run into anyone from the old days, and most of them were just as beat down and weary as he was. Zhang, on the other hand, seemed to be thriving.

"If I hadn't been paying attention would we be in this position today?"

Alright, the accusation was unfair and hastily spoken; Zhang really did seem to be trying to make a difference on his own.

"You just don't look much different to what I remember," Bradford muttered by way of explanation.

Zhang raised an eyebrow, no doubt wondering what had prompted Bradford to say that. "Well, I do remember what it's like to be on the wrong side," he eventually said. "Some people won't admit it to themselves and need a little push to open their eyes instead of willfully keeping them shut."

"And have you gotten anyone to 'open their eyes'?"

"I don't dwell on it."

"That easy, huh?"

"It can be."

"For some more so than others." Bradford pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes to relieve the pressure building behind them.

"The drinking probably isn't helping." Zhang picked up the empty bottle from the table and tossed it into the corner of the room.

"Save the lecture." One good thing about being the most senior officer on the Avenger was that while the crew might cast judging looks at his back when he spent too long wallowing at the bar, or exchange glances with each other when he stumbled onto the bridge hungover the morning after, none of them actually dared to approach him about it. He hadn't been afforded the same deference while he'd worked with various resistance groups though, and he'd heard just about every reproach and attempt to help there was.

"Alright, no lecture." Zhang sat down across from Bradford. "Pass the bottle."

They passed the second bottle back and forth until it was empty; by then, a pleasant fog had settled over Bradford's thoughts, and the room was swaying gently in the way the Avenger used to before Shen had installed new flight stabilizers. It'd been a long time since Bradford had dared to get this drunk on the Avenger—one always had to be ready to respond to the latest crisis—but there was nothing holding him back now.

"Feeling better?" the blurry image of Zhang across the table asked.

"You could say that," Bradford answered, the words tumbling out of his mouth on top of each other.

"Been a while since you've taken a break, huh? I can tell."

"You call this taking a break?"

"Today probably hasn't been much fun for you, I'll give you that, but I could change that."

Before Bradford could even guess at what Zhang meant, Zhang had slid around to his side of the table and was leaning in, his lips coming to rest on Bradford's.

God, it'd been so long since someone had touched him in a way that wasn't a friendly clap on the shoulder or a nudge in the side to get his attention. The kiss wasn't even particularly good, with both of them drunk as they were—Bradford could tell it wasn't just him who was having trouble keeping track of all his limbs from Zhang's clumsy failed attempts to do something with his hands—but it awakened a _need_ in Bradford he hadn't even known he'd harbored.

Zhang eventually settled on resting one hand on the table and the other on Bradford's thigh, his fingers digging in hard enough that they were bound to leave behind bruises.

Then Zhang pulled back, leaving both of them gasping for air and trying to regain their balance, too old to be furiously making out like teenagers. Bradford took a moment to catch his breath, and when he looked up, Zhang was watching him through half-lidded eyes.

Zhang trailed his hand down Bradford's thigh, his touch so light it was almost a caress. "Say no and I'll stop," he said, his voice an entire register lower than it usually was.

Bradford reached for the front of Zhang's shirt to pull him closer. "Why would I want you to do that?"

-

Bradford was awoken by Firebrand paging him over the radio, and lunged for the handset to reply, barely noticing Zhang’s arm sliding off his waist.

"Firebrand, this is Central. Code Alpha-Six-Two-Seven."

"Copy that. It's good to hear your voice, Central. Where do you want me to pick you up?"

Bradford examined the map that'd been pushed aside and was hanging almost entirely off the table. "Landing site Delta-Four-Nine, can you get there?"

"Can do. See you soon." The line fell silent.

"Your people are coming for you?"

Bradford had forgotten he wasn’t alone, and he just managed to stop himself from jumping at the sound of Zhang’s voice. When he looked over his shoulder, Zhang was stashing a pistol back into the space between the pallet and the wall.

"Yeah, they are," Bradford said.

A slightly awkward silence elapsed between them, with Zhang scrutinizing Bradford and Bradford not wanting to look away but not quite wanting to meet Zhang's eyes either.

"Last night wasn’t part of your standard recruitment spiel, was it?" Zhang finally said.

" _No_."

"Good. Just checking."

When no further conversation seemed forthcoming, Bradford got dressed, staunchly not looking to see if Zhang was watching him, and picked up his weapons and checked his pockets to make sure he had everything he'd brought. When he was done, Zhang was still casually reclined on the bedroll, just a thin blanket between him and complete nakedness. Not that Bradford hadn't already seen it all the night before. Maybe; his memory was fuzzy enough that he could be convinced it'd been a dream if he hadn't woken up the way he had.

"Where is XCOM headquartered these days anyway?" Zhang asked as he stretched languidly, far more graceful than a man his age and build had any business being.

"In a flying base," Bradford said, seeing no reason to keep it from him when the word was going to be out soon anyway, with the Avenger taking longer trips over more populated areas on every flight. "We do sometimes learn from our mistakes."

"Flying?" Zhang raised his eyebrows. "As in—"

"We've converted one of the aliens' ships for our own use."

"Very nice. Your ship got a name?"

"The Avenger."

"Avenger. I like it," Zhang said with an approving nod. "You got room for one more?" he asked after a long, thoughtful pause.

Now it was Bradford's turn to scrutinize Zhang; his query seemed genuine, even if his demeanor remained indifferent. "Will that make us even?"

"Are you kidding? That'll be two you owe me then," Zhang scoffed, but a smile was tugging at the corner of his lips.

Having an officer with Zhang's experience on board would make a huge difference to the crew's morale, not to mention make it easier to deploy more squads. And maybe, if Zhang wasn't opposed to the idea, they could snatch a few quiet moments together in between missions.

"Yeah," Bradford said, "I suppose we could make room for one more."


End file.
